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Text 8. Colleges and universities in the us.




New words:

Full professor - полный профессор, высшее ученое звание преподавателя в университете, занимающего должность профессора

Associate professor - адъюнкт-профессор (имеющий степень магистра и работающий над докторской диссертацией)(соотв. Доценту в Европ.странах)

Assistant professor - профессор-ассистент(имеющ. Ученую степень магистра или бакалавра)

Instructor - младший преподаватель высшего учебного заведения (проводит практические занятия) (аспирант)

Appropriate - ассигновать, финансировать

Revenue - годовой доход

Major - специализироваться по какому-либо предмету

Lifeguard - спасатель на водах

Campus - кампус, территория университета

Aide - помощник

Tutor - репетитор

Waiter - официант

Interest - процент

 

American colleges and universities are either public or private, that is, supported by public funds or supported pri­vately, by a church group or other groups acting as private citizens although under a state charter.

A public institution is owned and operated by a govern­ment, either a state or a municipal government. The govern­ment appropriates large sums of money for the institution's expenses. Yet these sums are normally not sufficient to cover all expenses, and so the institution is partially dependent on student fees and on gifts. In order to obtain needed revenue, most state universities charge a nominal tuition to students from the same state but charge a much higher fee for out-of-state students. With respect to finances, such universities are quite literally state universities and not national insti­tutions.

A private institution receives no direct financial aid from any government, municipal, state, or federal. The money used to pay the operating expenses has a threefold origin: tuition fees paid by students, money given in the form of gifts for im­mediate use; and the income from invested capital in the pos­session of the institution and often originally received by the institution in the form of gifts to be invested, with only the income to be spent.

Of the nation's nearly 1,900 institutions of higher learn­ing, roughly one-third are state or city institutions. About 1,200 are privately controlled. Approximately 700 of these are controlled by religious groups.

Somewhat less than half of these institutions are liberal arts colleges and universities which stress the languages, history, science and philosophy. The rest are professional and technological schools and junior colleges. The latter offer an abbreviated two-year college course.

A college is generally defined as an institution of higher learning which offers courses of instruction over a four-year period, and which grants a bachelor's degree at the conclu­sion of studies. As part of a university, a college graduate is distinguished from a graduate of professional school. However, the professional schools in some universities are called col­leges.

A college prepares the student for two things: either grad­uate study leading to a master's or doctor's degree, or a job immediately after graduation. A student who majors in business administration for example, may be fully prepared for a career in business when he has finished college. On the other hand, a student majoring in psychology often must do a great deal of graduate work before he is competent in that field.

The administration of higher education is the responsi­bility of both staff and faculty, but the work is divided be­tween these two groups. The former group of officials and cleric­al personnel takes care of the non-academic functions of the institution. When people refer to the administration of the university, it is to this group that they refer. Their role is not in instruction but in organization, classification, public relations, and financial management. The members of the university community whose role is instruction and research are called faculty members.

Members of the faculty or the instructional staff are classi­fied or ranked.

The highest rank possible is that of full professor. The next three ranks of the instructional staff are associate pro­fessor, assistant professor, and instructor, in descending or­der of importance. The salary scale decreases similarly, in­structors receive lower pay than assistant professors, and as­sistant professors less than associate professors. Naturally, there are fewer full professors on a university faculty than there are instructors.

To be a full professor in the United States, one must gen­erally have a Ph.D.1. Instructors may have only the M.A.2 and perhaps some work toward a doctorate. Many more men hold the doctorate than women; therefore, one would expect to find more men as college faculty members than women.

Students are classified as freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. A freshman is a first year student, a sophomore, a second year student; a junior, a third year student, and a senior, a fourth year student. All students who have graduat­ed from the senior class and who continue studying at a uni­versity are classified as advanced students or graduate stu­dents. Some graduate students receive grants or stipends which cover the cost of their education; a person on such a fellowship is called a university fellow. He may assist a pro­fessor with special research or assume responsibility for some classroom instruction. A few are called unclassified stu­dents, these are usually transfer students who have changed schools or special students and foreign students whose previ­ous advanced study was not done according to the usual sys­tem in the United States.

Today three out of every four American families of av­erage means expect to send their children to college. How many actually do so? One out of four. Most of the rest simply can't afford it.

The unhappy truth is that, like almost everything else, a college education is getting more expensive every year. In the school year 1966—67, the average public-university stu­dent spent $1640 for tuition, fees, room, board and books. Clothes, travel and other personal expenses added at least 20 percent. Total cost: about $2000. At private colleges the total came to around $3100. In the school year 1973—74 the average cost of attending a public institution was $4,400.

Applications are down at many colleges, as a result. And more people, students as well as parents, are beginning to question whether college is really worth the sacrifices that it is going to require.

At present prices, a fourth to a half of an average family's income is needed to pay one child's expenses at most col­leges, if the student lives on campus.

Tuition and living costs alone will often mean $8000 a year before the end of this decade.

The family that supports a son or daughter through grad­uate school already is laying out a relative fortune in the name of higher education.

To apply for a scholarship at a specific college or univer­sity, one should write to the college or university. If one is interested in a scholarship offered by a business organization or community group, one should write to the president of the organization or to the appropriate official of the organi­zation, if he is known. A student might well ask the assistance of his high school principal or his minister, priest or rabbi in applying for a scholarship.

Most scholarships cover tuition only, that is why two out of three college students take part-time jobs during the school year, during summer vacations, or both. Jobs are usually on campus, as laboratory assistants, cafeteria helpers, library and museum aides, teachers' assistants, and so on. Competi­tion for campus work is intense and growing.

In summer, many students work as camp counsellors, life­guards, tutors, resort waiters and waitresses. The work is frequently hard, but lucrative, and a thrifty student may be able to go back to college with $600 to $700. Many summer jobs are open in federal, state and city agencies, in camps, parks, neighborhood centers, children's homes, hospitals.

Undergraduates by the thousands are also taking out loans. National Defense Education Act (NDEA) loans are available through financial aid officers at more than 1600 U.S. schools. Terms: you must be enrolled at least half time, be in good stand­ing, with demonstrable financial need. An undergraduate may borrow up to $1000 a year; a graduate or professional student, up to $2500. You pay no interest while in school. Repayment starts 12 months after you leave, and can stretch up to ten years; interest is three percent on the unpaid balance. If you enter teaching, ten percent of the loan, plus interest, may be canceled for each year of service, up to 50 percent of the amount borrowed.

 

NOTES

1. Ph.D. = Doctor of Philosophy from Latin "Philosophiae Doctor", the highest degree conferred on a person by a college or university

2. M.A. = Master of Arts from Latin "Magister Artium", a degree from a college or university denoting completion of a prescribed course of graduate study

 

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